Phoenix
by Inner Moonlight
Summary: Olivia muses on a tattoo


**Phoenix**

_Disclaimer: I don't own Law and Order: SVU. If I did, Elliot would still be on, Olivia never would have left for any part of any season, and Olivia and Elliot would have kissed. Carry on…_

_FIRST FANFIC!_

_Summary: Olivia muses over a tattoo. One-sided, briefly mentioned EO. Slight spoilers for episodes._

She got it a couple of years ago, unbeknownst to everyone in the precinct. The first time she wore a backless shirt, (and it was only for an undercover assignment, _God_. No need to jump to conclusions…) everyone in the precinct asked about. She deflected it, like she deflected most personal questions, with a comment on their latest perp, which usually shut them up.

She would deflect it from her various sex partners (she didn't want to think of them as _lovers_. The only love involved was a love of her body, and what it could do to them) with a promise of more sex, smothering their questions with a kiss.

Alone, however, she had nothing against what made her choose it.

_**Part 1: Flight**_

Flight. Now that's a tough one, isn't it? What does flying have to do with Detective Benson? Is it that she travels a lot?

No.

In high school and college, she used to do drugs. She quit when she decided that she wanted to become a police officer, but she could never forget the feeling it gave her.

Not the high, exactly, but what _came _with the high. She could hallucinate anything and everything, and her favorite was being a bird, though all were acceptable. The hallucinations gave her license to escape her own body and her painful past, if only for a few minutes. After that she was the product of a rape again, with an abusive and alcoholic mother. She would never forget the feeling.

As she grew older, and even sometimes then, she gained the reputation of being a "slut". All the boys (and girls) she slept with used her for bragging rights, a one- or two- night stand with a beautiful woman.

Much as she hated this objectification, she couldn't help but feel pity for them. They thought that they were using her, to add to their reputations, but she was using _them_. With every ragged pair of lips on her body, and slick skin pressed against her own, she escaped herself again, leaving the shell, the weak girl, on the mattress, next to her current fucking partner.

With these vices-every taste of the drug going down, every sexual encounter-she flew.

It was exhilarating.

_**Part 2: Burning**_

She used to burn herself in high school, and college.

She'd tried cutting, but found that it didn't hurt enough and didn't leave enough marks. Cutting could be covered with some expertly applied makeup, but covering burn scars was harder.

She quit the burning along with the drugs, and stopped smoking to get rid of means to fulfill temptation.

Later, she burned under the hateful stares of perps and vics. The vics burned her, asking her why she couldn't _do _anything, when she was trying her best. The perps didn't bother her as much, because usually they were too stupid and shallow to be bothersome. It was the ones who got in her head and under her skin that burnt her.

"Were you raped?"

She _hated _that question. Luckily, usually Elliot would deck the perp about this time, saving her the bother of doing it herself.

_And ruining her manicure._

Ah, Elliot. Her volatile, borderline psychopathic partner. He was fire, and as fire, he made her burn.

She burnt whenever he got angry at her, when they had to bail each other out of some situation, when he comforted her after Sealview, when she had to press her nearly naked body against his in an effort to keep a cover from going wrong.

Now that was fire.

They were fire.

_**Part 3: Rebirth**_

She died with each of the victims, the dead ones-gone too soon, in something that could never be fixed, each with terror and no hope for salvation; and the living ones, robbed of innocence, laughter robbed from their eyes, with nothing left to do but pray for help.

She died on the anniversary of her conception, sobbing into a bottle of beer in an effort to remember what led to her being born.

She died on her birthday, her mother's birthday, and her mother's death, remembering what happened, linking all these events.

She died every time she thought about Sealview, her wrist cuffed to a door, his..penis…in front of her mouth, Fin getting there just in time.

And she was reborn.

She was reborn at the end of every trial with a "guilty" verdict, celebrating with Casey or Alex with glasses of wine and some chick flick where the right girl got the guy.

She was reborn when she visited her vics, seeing how they'd moved on with their lives.

She was reborn when visiting the Stablers, their home a place filled with light and laughter where she was always welcome.

Yes, she died.

But she was reborn, too.

_A/N: So….Review, s'il vous plait!_


End file.
